He likes the idea of the number theory and counting and probability classes, but is not sure he will have time for them. He really enjoyed Math Olympiad and did very well when we were able to participate in it and his favorite problems were the ones that used those skills. I think we may do one at the end of this year and the other before starting Geometry in the fall. I think he could do without the videos, but it is always nice to have a demonstration/explanation of a concept when mom can't help. I did math through Precalculus in high school and am not sure whether he would be motivated enough to try to get through Calculus or not. His writing is not his strong point and I have a feeling that how he handles the increased load of writing that accompanies high school will prove to be the deciding factor. We also may be relocating back to the States between his junior and senior year of high school and I am not sure how that would affect schooling yet. (We are military and have little control over the timing of our next move).

I have a few questions for those who are further along in AOPS than we are. My son is approximately halfway through the Introdutory Algebra text. I am wondering whether he should go ahead and do the Number Theory and Counting and Probability or if it would be best to just go ahead and move on to the Geometry class. I want him to finish at least through Precalculus by the end of his senior year. He is currently in 8th grade. He enjoys math and has done very well with the Prealgebra and Introductory Algebra but he definitely likes having the videos available to watch. Since there are no videos available beyond the Intro courses, I wonder if we might use Khan Academy for videos. Not sure how that will work. The online classes are not really an option with our limited internet reliability and the time zone difference (we live in Okinawa, Japan). Thanks for any input.

Thank you very much!

Thanks. I saw a link to a kit that contains materials to complete SOME of the labs. Is it difficult to round up materials for all the labs? Or are some of the materials required household items that do not need to be purchased from a laboratory supply?

Are these all video labs or are some of them hands on? I am trying to plan for a homeschool co-op next year. I like the cost of DIVE compared to BJU but I really want to have hands on labs. I suppose I could easily either actually do the same lab or a similar one in our lab time for the co-op. I just want to know what I am getting.

Lots of stuff on here I am already doing. We are decluttering NOW...movers come next Tuesday. We have thought about loft beds. I already have floor to ceiling bookshelves lining our dining room wall because that is the only place we have had enough wall space to put them and we are bringing the bookshelves with us...they are full already but one of the three bookshelves is filled with my husband's books that he can hopefully store in his office since they are mostly work related. That might free up space for some storage baskets for art and craft supplies. I am planning to use the suitcases for out of season clothing, and store stuff under beds. Not sure about scanning my entire library. I don't like reading from screens all the time and do not want to print everything when I need it. I WILL make space for my books. At least I know I am heading in the right direction. The closest Ikea is three hours away and I am not sure I have time to get there before our stuff gets packed up and shipped. I am sure that since everyone in Japan has tight quarters there should be some clever storage items to be found when we get there. Thanks for the ideas!

We are moving to Japan in January with the Army and we are losing about 300 square feet of house going from 1500 to 1200 or less square feet. I know the houses there may have more closet and storage space than I think, but I would like to know from others here who may be better organized than I am how you manage in a small home. We will be in this house for the next three years, so I need to make it work. I have three kids, ages 13, 11 and 7. They will each have their own tiny bedroom. Any ideas for maximizing space will be appreciated. Thanks, Jennifer

There are courses in Japanese on post and we will have opportunities to interact with Japanese people. I wanted to get a head start using Mango Languages, which our library has available for free. Just some phrases to get around with. We plan to make the most of my husband's assignment and travel as much as we are able. I have a college friend who lives in Tokyo, and my nephew is also stationed in Japan, on the main island.

My Army Chaplain husband has orders to Okinawa and we will move at the beginning of the year. We are most of the way through Second Form Latin, but I am having trouble deciding what to do about language study while we are in Japan. I am afraid if we try to do two languages at one time, my kids might be overwhelmed. I want to learn the language of the place we will call home for at least 2 years, maybe 3. If we drop Latin entirely, they will forget everything they have already learned, I am afraid. I am debating using some Latin short story books and readers from Artes Latinae and such to just keep them familiar with the material while we take a break to learn Japanese. What would you do in this situation? Or, if you have been in my place--moving to a foreign country in the middle of Latin study, what was your approach and how did it work out? Thanks!

Thanks, everyone! I have already planned on bringing bikes--we all need new ones, so we will purchase before hand, and definitely will check out REI. And, I had not thought about professional gear as an option. This is our first PCS since we didn't have to move when hubby became a chaplain. I am going to learn a lot through this process. I will adapt to the space, and I have already given my kids orders to sift through their stuff and figure out what they could live without so we can have a yard sale at the end of the month--that will be the first wave of paring down! I already have a Nook, but wonder if we should also get a kindle. not sure if there is an advantage to one over the other. We got the Nook for free when my mom upgraded to Nook color. And, I am glad to hear about the library loan systems. I rely heavily on our library here and would rather not have to purchase EVERY book. We also have plans already to do as much traveling as my hubby's assignment will allow! I am really excited! I just like to have my ducks in a row before I take a plunge. Winging it has never been my thing, especially when moving to the opposite side of the globe!

I am thrilled about the opportunity to spend two years in a foreign culture. Wondering if any of the other military members of the forum have been stationed there and can give any ideas of how your homeschooling went while there. I am concerned about the space restraints and how I am going to 1) get the materials I need in a timely manner and 2) where I am going to store it all! I have serious space issues already and our house will 100% sure be smaller there. I need to get in touch with the education people on post here to find out what I can about homeschooling in a foreign country, but if anyone can offer any tips/advice on dealing with my above issues, or any other words of wisdom, I would appreciate it!

I use Vocabulary from Classical Roots, but we also do vocabulary from our read alouds. Some of them are for our history curriculum and the teacher's guide tells which words to have the student define. If we do it before reading the book, we may not know which definition to use, so I find the passage (the guide tells what page and paragraph) and help them to write the correct definition. My kids have really large vocabularies, and I think it has to do with the fact that they are avid readers and have encountered a huge variety of words, I do ask them if they know what a word means before they have to look it up, but sometimes it is best to know a precise definition rather than getting by with what they think the word means.

The agars I have used are all from different manufacturers and so it can't be just bad agar. I think I must be the problem...But I am following the directions!

I tried for the 3rd and last time to use agar to make petri dishes for bacteria experiments. First I got the kind in a bottle that you just "melt and pour". It never congealed enough to streak anything. Then, twice I have tried the powdered agar that you have to boil. It never congealed correctly either. I never realized it would be so hard. I was a science major in college...I used these things all the time, but I cannot seem to make a petri dish with agar in it. Fortunately, I have found an experiment book that uses Jello and SlimFast for a substrate, and I am moving on. I would still like to know why, if I am following the directions, my agar didn't set!?

We do the exact thing you are describing over our summer. We knock out everything in the morning; that way we can do fun stuff the rest of the day. We are usually done at 10:30 or 11.

We end up taking off about 12 weeks throughout the year, and that gives me 40 weeks of teaching time. I find that perfect for allowing time for sickness, lack of motivation, or "life" that happens to get us off schedule and that leaves us behind somehow. Most curriculum I have found is for 36 weeks (the typical public school year) or less.

Thanks, Rachelle.

Thanks for all the words of wisdom ladies!

I love http://www.teavana.com . They have a wide selection of loose teas and I can usually use each teaspoon to make several cups of tea.

The main reason we are planning to take almost the whole month after dh comes home is that he will likely have a three week block leave, during which we will be traveling out of town for 10 days, and we NEVER get any school work done when Dad is at home! We have lots of stuff to do around the house as well, since we will more than likely be moving within months after he comes home, so we need to take advantage of his block leave to some maintenance done around the house. Thanks for the offer to vent, Beth. I may take you up on it. Since I am the chaplain's wife, I really don't vent to anyone; they vent to me!

I did plan for us being off for R&R, but other things over the course of the year have made us off schedule: my lack of sleep which makes for oh so little motivation, plus the fact that the first third of the deployment I was in physical therapy for a bulging disk in my neck and my daughter had a cast on her arm for six weeks which made everything slower school wise because we had to do EVERYTHING orally. (It was her right arm in the cast and she is right-handed).

Thanks, lauracolumbus. We usually only do math, science, and history during the summer, and art as we have time for it. This year, since we are behind, I was planning to keep up Latin because we have not finished, but we are at a good stopping point as we are about to begin dealing with the passive voice and I might like to delay that until a time when I feel more refreshed! Perhaps review, review, review over the summer via recitation would be better than plowing ahead.

Our third child is the result of a pre-raincoat dip that went a bit too far.

My husband joined the Army as a Chaplain in September 2009 and is in Afghanistan for the second time since then. By the time he comes home he will have spent a total of 22 out of 36 months gone from home. I can't imagine how families have done this for ten or eleven years! I have always done school year-round, taking three or four week breaks a few times per year, but at this point I am exhausted and wondering if I am crazy to try to keep at it this summer. We are way behind where I want to be, but I realize we are homeschooling so I can have control over our schooling. I keep reminding myself that we are in the home stretch(hubby should be home in September), but I feel like I am going to be limping across the finish line! My question is, if you have or have had a deployed spouse while homeschooling, how have you handled schooling during deployment? If you got behind, were you been able to make up for it later? I have cut myself a lot of slack on housecleaning and have tasked my kids with most daily chores except cooking and loading the dishwasher and washing clothes--they empty the dishwasher, fold laundry, clean bathrooms, take care of our dogs, sweep, vacuum and dust, and my son cuts the grass. My kids have handled Dad being gone so much extremely well and they are prepared to do school through the summer. I really want to be able to take the whole month after he come home off, and that is why I feel like we need to troop on through the summer. I do not know many other military homeschoolers locally to ask. I need some perspective. Thanks!

"Many people ask me "When are you done with school for the year?" each spring." I get the same question and I just tell them we school year round and take three week breaks 4 or 5 times per year; usually two weeks in the summer are devoted to various camps. "We never really stop just slow down over the summer." We do this too. We usually don't do language arts over the summer, except for maybe review, but we do math, science and history, and art. We usually are only working on finishing up what is left from the school year. "And my DD is a math struggler so I have just kept up a math curriculum all summer." I continue with math over the summer for the same reason--my DD10 just now is understanding division and I am hoping to get caught up to grade level by the end of next summer after being two years behind for a long time. Not sure how to quote from previous posts. Sorry if it's confusing!